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The creators should have explained, how Kirito met up with the guild and why did he suddenly decide to join up with them when he was a loner in the previous two episodes. The pacing was extremely rushed, jumping months between every scene. I can understand that Kirito got attached to the guild's members during that time, but we only saw like two scenes with them, so I could hardly care about their deaths.
The trap scene was also way too rushed. Then before it took an effect on him, they immediately jumped another half a year and who knows what happened during that time?

It'll be laughable if Sachi is going to have a huge impact on Kirito's life after this, and yet we have only known this 'important' character for a single episode

Visals, BGM and the VA's were great as always, but the lousy script and the bad directing pretty much ruined the whole episode.

its really that problematic the time skip, this is nothing so unusual in anime/manga, its true that in LN we always have insight from the protagonist or the narrator,nut not the case in the other 2 formats,one example is both FMA animes wich were like this in their first episodes(mostly the first anime), and certainly this isnt at the level of complexity of baccano!.

The only 2 major beefs I had with this episode, is firstly, I do think that the transition to RDR from Beater is still a little bit off. They've kept a degree of consistency stemming from Kirito's lingering inner troubles ( regret of sorts ) that kept Kirito being an awkward soul, but it still felt a little bit jarring.

Secondly is the fact that the episode showed way too much restraint for an emotional piece. This is a personal opinion, but I thought that given the scope of drama that they wanted to cram into one episode, it lacked the 'execution of emotions.'

Maybe it would've been different from the source material, but I personally did feel that if they dedicated just a few extra minutes towards padding in more moments like Kirito bawling his heart out at the very final scene or at least screamed like a madman when Keita jumped to his death... it could've amplified what was a rather subdued episode of emotional heart-tingling.

When it comes to emotional episodes, it is my feeling that the smallest things make all the difference. This episode did some things really well ( like ending the episode of Sachi's final words, etc )... but they could've been a lot more impactful.

Eg. a few seconds of a scene showing Kirito (with dead eyes) walking back to Keita alone, while Keita was all happy. Something like that would've been really powerful.

Did a marathon of two episodes. Felt somewhat rushed but it's good. I am guessing the staff want to get to the meat of plot.

Oh, the irony. Kirito has the knowledge to help them yet that same knowledge will get him ostracized. I am beginning to think those who are prejudiced against beaters are too dumb to live. I mean its life or death in this game. Having knowledge about this game would be huge asset.

Oh, the irony. Kirito has the knowledge to help them yet that same knowledge will get him ostracized. I am beginning to think those who are prejudiced against beaters are too dumb to live. I mean its life or death in this game. Having knowledge about this game would be huge asset.

Beaters hogs that knowledge to themselves without sharing. Prejudice is only natural.

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Night~and~Gale: ~ The Final Mythology of the Man who Defied Destiny.The sleeping lion shall awaken beyond the depths of time, crossing ten billion lights, come to Terra.

Beaters hogs that knowledge to themselves without sharing. Prejudice is only natural.

But still, Kirito has shown there are beaters who would help them. It would be wise just to try to enlist those kind of beaters to help them. But then again, I would agree that finding beaters like Kirito would be too idealistic.

Anime-only viewer here, never heard of the LN, haven't even read any particular hints about the future of the show. "Oh well, I guess they want to get to the meat of the plot," doesn't make any sense to me, because this appears to be the meat of the plot, and I wouldn't have known otherwise short of that comment.

This show is pretty awful so far. These points were mentioned in various posts, but here again, for good measure:

Where's that cute, awesome swords-girl that Kirito seemed to have a connection with last ep?

Floor 28? Holy cow, that was a lot of boss fights & such they skipped over. I mean, look at how much drama just went into the Floors 1->2.

Hey, Klein's still alive?! What happened... Oh, we get nothing.

Klein's guild fighting some other guild... Wait, is there PVP in this game? That wasn't touched, have these players been killing each other for loot/XP this whole time? Oh... you're not going to tell us.

Where's the cute swords-chick from the opening?

DEMON SANTA!!!! THIS SHOULD BE EPIC, OMGGgg.... Never mind, I guess. No epic demon santa battle for me. Really? We spent more time this ep fighting treasure chest guards than we did fighting the crazy demon santa.

Aaaannnd... Kirito's back in loner mode, we know nothing else about the rest of the world except for the fact that Klein's alive, so this episode literally might as well not have happened. He was in loner mode at the end of last episode, I-saw-somebody-die-so-don't-get-attached-to-anyone mode at the end of last episode, and we knew nothing about Cutey McSword at the end of last episode either.

Jeeze, and I thought I had enough to bitch about at the end of last episode. I'll probably keep watching for a little bit because the setting has some potential, but yikes, this has not been good.

I thought this was a good episode. I think they overdid it by beating us on the head with the "you won't die" talk and it turns out that they all die in the way. Their death didn't sadden me (maybe perhaps that death by pickaxe, ouch), but their effect on Kirito did. It was sad to see Kiro trying to protect them and ended in failure and probably will drive him to be more loner.

Still, I kinda failed how exactly is his fault though. The Black Cats were dead because of their stupidity...

The scene where he tells them not to open it was supposed to be longer. They had time to argue about it. Kirito could have told them he'd already fought in that dungeon as part of the clearing group and found it to be full of traps, but didn't because he didn't want to reveal his level.

This ep didn't hit me as hard as the novel. I guess partly because I knew precisely what to expect, partly because of pacing. Mostly pacing. I knew they'd all die from the beginning.

Anime-only viewer here, never heard of the LN, haven't even read any particular hints about the future of the show. "Oh well, I guess they want to get to the meat of the plot," doesn't make any sense to me, because this appears to be the meat of the plot, and I wouldn't have known otherwise short of that comment.

This show is pretty awful so far. These points were mentioned in various posts, but here again, for good measure:

Where's that cute, awesome swords-girl that Kirito seemed to have a connection with last ep?

Floor 28? Holy cow, that was a lot of boss fights & such they skipped over. I mean, look at how much drama just went into the Floors 1->2.

Hey, Klein's still alive?! What happened... Oh, we get nothing.

Klein's guild fighting some other guild... Wait, is there PVP in this game? That wasn't touched, have these players been killing each other for loot/XP this whole time? Oh... you're not going to tell us.

Where's the cute swords-chick from the opening?

DEMON SANTA!!!! THIS SHOULD BE EPIC, OMGGgg.... Never mind, I guess. No epic demon santa battle for me. Really? We spent more time this ep fighting treasure chest guards than we did fighting the crazy demon santa.

Aaaannnd... Kirito's back in loner mode, we know nothing else about the rest of the world except for the fact that Klein's alive, so this episode literally might as well not have happened. He was in loner mode at the end of last episode, I-saw-somebody-die-so-don't-get-attached-to-anyone mode at the end of last episode, and we knew nothing about Cutey McSword at the end of last episode either.

Jeeze, and I thought I had enough to bitch about at the end of last episode. I'll probably keep watching for a little bit because the setting has some potential, but yikes, this has not been good.

1. Kirito is a loner, that is why he showed an awkward face when they invited him to the guild. Him joining the guild just means he doesn't want to be a loner, but because of circumstances, he rather be one.

2 Honestly at this point, I think you're better off writing your own novel. The LN didn't feautured all the level's bosses, and had a timeskip too, so basically the anime is doing rather well. I think you're complaining at the wrong things =/

3. the cute chick with swords, yes please remember her beautiful name, Asuna. Serisouly, you expect each episode to feature each character and give them development? =/

4. The Klein part fighting off the 3 parties was skipped, but I think that is the least of the problem here right? And not telling you the first time it shows up doesn't mean it's bad, it just means that maybe sometime in the future it will happen, geez impatient aren't we?

5. For the santa battle, it wasn't written in the light novels too, so blame the author.

and this episode serves as a character development episode, albeit a little bit poor because of the time constraint, nonetheless it is important for the main character's character development that I'm sure will come in play somehow.

Opening scene was a total deja vu to .hack//
Kirito seems to be doing just fine on his own.
Reunion with Klein was kinda flat. Kirito is one weird guy.
He doesn't like guilds or parties, but joins one anyway. His strategies are pretty unusual.
Just can't figure him out. He keeps to himself, but helps others when needed.
Going to a higher floor was a really bad idea. That trap came with a high price.
I think I get it now. Kirito avoids others because he always gets them killed...
He took Sachi's death pretty hard.

I'm usually not as harsh on the criticism as a lot of people here , but even I have to admit that the pacing was much too quick this episode. To be honest, though, although people were saying it was obvious, I didn't expect them to die because Sachi appeared in the OP, so I was shocked and saddened when she died.

They managed to convey all the information they needed to give this episode. From my perspective as an anime-only watcher, the staff is still handling most parts except the pacing well enough. I'll just be optimistic and assume they'll allow us more time to emotionally digest bigger things the further they go through the story.

I actually liked Sachi's design and her archetype, and Hayami Saori is a great VA, so I'm really sad that she's gone. But maybe that being the biggest impression I had says enough about how this episode was done. Despite the slight negativity though, I think it's still good compared to an average episode in an average anime. I just expected more of SAO, so I'm a bit disappointed.

felt rushed... way too rushed
i didn't felt like the build up for the sachixkirito was enough and the death scene for the party was plain
i'm a non-LN reader so i don't know what suppose to happen before or inbetween and it makes me feel lost when watching this series and i can't help comparing this series to ./hack

Imagine what would happen if it turned out that the people who died in the game didn't actually die in real life but were simply disconnected from the game and woke up in real life. The people in the game wouldn't know that this was the case since they would have been shut away from the news in the real world. The one who got to the final floor would wake up in bed only to realise that the cake game is a lie.

If that's the case, why isn't the government just unplugging them? The fact that they're still in the game only makes sense is if Kayaba was telling the truth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by larethian

I'm surprised no one commented on how n00bish it was to rush in and open a treasure box sitting in the middle of an empty room

And it's quite shocking that some of them died from just a hit or two. That was one of the deadliest trap rooms a DM/GM can put in a paper and pencil RPG game.

They did say they were going to a dungeon on a higher level -- i.e. one that's above their level.

Okay I've just watched the whole episode. Seeing RNR is only 1 ep, I expected it to be rushed, but after watching it, I understand why LN readers (who probably also expected things to be cut) feel disappointed. The episode was like a summary of its original LN version: while it contained enough details from summary, it missed out the emotional bits - which in turn lower impacts of the story, the most blatant ones would be:

- No background introduction of the first meeting between Kirito and the Black Cats.

Spoiler for first meeting in LN:

From LN, Kirito was emotionally tired from being alone and playing in a progression-based style. Then the Black Cats came and give him the fresh, pleasant feeling of protecting and associating with the others, so in a way, they both helped each others.

While in anime, it looked like Kirito was just playing along as he got into the happy mood of the Black Cat. Things became somewhat one-sided. I don't know if I'm not observant enough, but if I didn't read the LN, I probably won't see much emotional attachment between Kirito and the BCs (with exception of Sacchi) other than guildmates.

- Lack of depiction Kirito mindset in the episode

Spoiler for Kirito mindset:

In RNR LN, after the death of BCs, Kirito was in so much grief that he was leveling and playing in a suicidal manner all in order to get the revival item. Even after the boss fight, Kirito was disappointed that he was able to survive. Then without caring about himself, he trembly look for the reviving items, calling out Sacchi name, just to find out it won't work. After that, he pretty much was going to suicide by challenging floor bosses by himself. All these would make for some good emotional scenes.

In anime, we only know Kirito was in grief. There wasn't any depiction of his grief level, with the exception of one single thought "If I go alone, I'll probably die" and his soulless eyes after getting the item. Skipping the result of the boss fight didn't help, either. As others have said, it lacks of impacts.

So all in all, an episode that would have been able to bring viewers to the verge of tearing up became a "ok, that was sad"